Forest Whitaker has portrayed a tortured jazz pioneer, a gay clothing designer, a samurai hit man, a charismatic pool hustler and a maniacal dictator, so it’s a bit shocking that he’s now chosen to play a clone.

The Oscar-winning star may lull you into believing that Sam Cooper, his role in the new CBS series, “Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior,” is a rich, complex character — especially when Whitaker is delivering his sales pitch from the set that he helped design.

But watch more than 10 minutes of the show, which premiered last week, and you’ll quickly realize that the dude is just one more lone-wolf investigator whose only purpose in life is to take a bite out of crime.

It may not be Whitaker’s most creative decision, but it’s probably one of his smartest.

CBS remains TV’s most-watched network because it keeps churning out hour after hour of detectives chasing the sickest killers on Earth with little time to make goo-goo eyes at their colleagues.

Those who worried that their audiences would get weary of being served the same ol’ thing overestimated our appetite for variety. Three “CSI” series are coexisting just fine, and “NCIS” is enjoying its best ratings ever, even with the arrival last season of “NCIS: LA.”

“Yeah, there’s a lot of crime dramas out there, but there’s also a lot of soaps out there,” said co-executive producer Deborah Spera. “Is there an end in sight? I doubt it. People are fascinated by crime, how it works, who does them and how they are solved.”

But does the hero have to be so, well, familiar?

Take Whitaker’s Cooper. He is the very best in his field (well, except for Mark Harmon on “NCIS”), he’s supersensitive about victims (almost as much as David Caruso on “CSI: NY”), and he keeps to himself (kinda like Joe Mantegna on “Criminal Minds”).

Why not shake up the recipe?

I wish CBS had the creative juices to spotlight a crime fighter who wears a hand-me-down hat from McCloud and fights rural moonshiners in Kentucky (the FX channel’s “Justified”) or a government agent who ends his days of going after the mob by whipping himself on the back in his seedy hotel room (HBO’s “Boardwalk Empire”).

Too much? Well, what about casting Janeane Garofalo as the lead?

She’s actually part of the cast of “Suspect Behavior,” although you’ll be forgiven if you don’t notice. Garofalo, who used to make fun of this kind of commercial drama, seems to spend most of her time hiding from the camera in fear that she might lose her alt-comedy credentials.

Instead, a gutsy producer would give her center stage and an itchy trigger finger.

The long-awaited exhibition will feature artifacts, stories and perspective on the historical role of brewing in Colorado's fortunes, from Adolph Coors' first experiments to (relative) upstarts and current titans such as New Belgium Brewing.